Chapter Text
Tuesday, 2146 hours
“He’s burning up,” Hunk whispered.
He didn’t know what to do.
Rockbell had given the go ahead to remove layers as at this point they were doing more harm than good and Lance was laid out on the blanket in nothing but his shorts, sweat glistening on his skin and cheeks dark with fever.
One hundred and two point six and climbing.
More water had been sent, Rockbell had instructed Hunk to wipe Lance down with the contents, to apply a cold rag to his forehead to try and keep his fever down, but also implored Hunk to drink and pace himself too (his fever was up to one hundred but holding steady).
If he became as sick as Lance and couldn’t give him what little care he was right now…
Lance would die.
He would overheat if he didn’t choke on his own blood first, an almost steady trickle now without end.
Hunk had stopped trying to clean his face and even now there was a dark red stain on the tanned flesh.
“I can go in,” Pidge said, voice wavering where she stood next to Rockbell and Veronica. “My armor—”
“No,” Rockbell vetoed.
“But—”
“No,” Veronica said then, soft but firm. “Lance wouldn’t… wouldn’t want you to endanger yourself.”
“I don’t give two fucks what he wants,” Pidge snapped. “He needs—”
“Veronica’s right,” Hunk said, meeting Pidge’s snapping eyes.
“Fuck all of this,” Pidge snarled, slamming a hand down on the console.
Hunk couldn’t agree more.
Rockbell had relayed the results of the meeting, what they knew.
What the Garrison Council had suggested.
Hunk felt sick.
He felt sicker that he knew Lance would stupidly agree. It was almost a good thing he was in no condition to say as such.
But no. Not really.
“You need to sleep,” Rockbell told him. “You will do neither of you any good if you overexert yourself. Prop Esposito up and we’ll monitor from here; if you need to awake we’ll signal” — an almost airhorn blare sounded and Hunk jumped even though Lance barely twitched — “and awaken you.”
Hunk nodded his understanding.
He didn’t sleep well.
Wednesday, 0156 hours
Hunk awoke to the airhorn sound.
Even sleep muddled he knew what meant, if the sounds of Lance’s choking weren’t clue enough.
Briggs was on screen but Hunk paid him no mind, crawling a few paces to where Lance had fallen, propping him up and driving his hand against Lance’s back.
There was already a bruise forming from previous strikes.
Lance’s chokes turned to gasping breaths as blood and saliva were expelled.
Hunk had stopped trying to be sanitary yesterday.
Above the sounds of Lance’s gasps there was a word mixed in.
His name.
“H-Hunk.”
“Right here, hermano, right here,” Hunk soothed, pulling the hot, trembling form into his arms.
Briggs called out for a thermometer reading and Hunk awkwardly got the scanner in hand, pressing it to Lance’s head.
One hundred and three.
God.
“Hunk,” Lance repeated, and a shaking hand latched itself into Hunk’s undershirt, his jacket long since discarded. He mumbled something then, sweaty forehead pressed against Hunk’s chest, bloodied nose staining the shirt.
Spanish.
Over and over in breathy, choked sobs.
“No quiero morir. No quiero morior. Por favor. Dios. No quiero morir.”
‘I don’t want to die.’
“I won’t let you,” Hunk choked out. “I won’t. You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
He just…
He had no idea how.
Wednesday, 0741 hours
“It’s Galra.”
Colleen’s quiet announcement via a transmission from the lab (where she and her team had been working all night although only she and Coran (in Keith’s armor) were allowed to interact with the sample) to the conference room froze the air.
“What?” Shiro repeated.
No.
It couldn’t be…
“There’s a marker for Galra DNA,” Colleen said, “identical to the helix code the Altean database provided. This virus… it’s Galra in origin.”
“It was an attack,” Allura sounded horrified. “To cripple Earth, the Coalition.”
Sendak may have been defeated but this war was still far, far from over and this was a stark reminder.
“Does that mean you have a vaccine?” Keith asked.
Colleen let out an uncharacteristic bitter laugh. “No. Not… not even close. This is an engineered virus, full of chemicals and compounds we can’t even begin to unravel. I…” she took a breath that sounded more like a sob.
Shiro felt his heart twist.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “There’s… there’s no possible way before Lance… I’m so sorry. We haven’t even begun to dissect it and even if we had it would be several days for the incubation period to take effect for us to withdraw the fluid and purify the antigen.”
“Colleen, no,” Sam spoke then, pressing a hand to the screen. “No. You can do this. I believe in—”
“I tried,” her voice broke again, “with what we had. I tried to inject it and use the processor to accelerate the incubation period. The virus, it killed the eggs, overrode them, before we could even get it to the processor. Mammalian cells made it there but… but they were too weak to withstand it. It’s… it’s a super virus. It’s beyond human capacity.”
She sounded so tired, so heartbroken.
Shiro knew in that instant that no matter what they said it would not be enough.
Not for Lance, not even for Hunk.
They were going to die.
Slowly. Painfully.
And they could do nothing.
Keith next to him let out a shuddering breath, hands fisted at his sides.
“Mom you can’t,” Pidge stepped up next to Sam. “Please. Please. Coran,” she turned to where the Altean stood just behind Colleen. “There has to be a way. Something. This can’t be…”
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” and Colleen looked it too. “I’m so sorry. But without even a proper incubator that can withstand—”
“Me.”
Shiro hadn’t thought his heart could twist more but he’d been wrong.
“Use me,” Keith stepped forward. “I’m, I’m not fully human. I’m Galran too. Maybe my blood can…”
And God help them Colleen didn’t outright deny it.
“No,” Shiro interjected.
He felt dizzy.
“Shiro—”
“No. This is insane. Reckless,” Shiro stressed the word.
This might be the most reckless thing Keith had ever done.
It could be his last.
“I don’t care!” Keith snapped, heated purple gaze turning on him. “Shiro I, I have to try.”
This was too raw, too personal of a conversation to be having with the gathered audience of Garrison council members, just waiting to judge him and Keith both for their age and experience and demerit them from their positions.
Shiro didn’t care. What were ranks and titles and image when compared to Keith’s life?
“I can’t lose you. Goddamnit Keith,” he stepped forward, flesh and metal hands clamping down on Keith’s shoulders.
“Say it, Shiro,” Keith said, quieter but no less fierce. “You can’t lose me too? You’ve given up on them already? When, when you promised,” his breath hitched, “that you’d get them home?”
Shiro felt like he’d been punched.
He had said that.
He had promised.
But…
Keith...
“You promised,” Keith repeated, voice small.
Shiro pulled Keith forward into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the dark hair.
He didn’t know what he was apologizing entirely for.
Keith didn’t seem to either as he remained stiff in the hold.
“Would it even work?” Sam asked quietly into the uncomfortable silence.
“I don’t know,” Colleen admitted. “But given how potent it is the Galra would have created some sort of measure within it to prevent themselves from getting sick. Keith has mixed blood; he would likely get sick too from his human half, but his Galra genes… they could fight it, absorb it. His very blood itself could become the base for the vaccine, the cure. Or… or it could kill him.”
Shiro swallowed thickly, pressing his nose into Keith’s hair.
He couldn’t stop Keith. He was a grown adult and could do what he wanted. But Shiro knew still how much weight his words, his approval carried.
Either he allowed Keith do this with the (great) possibility it killed him… or he denied it and lost Keith in another way.
“You sure?” he asked in place of an answer.
Keith nodded against his chest.
“Okay,” Shiro breathed and he felt Keith grow limp then before arms wrapped about his own waist. “Okay.”
He was distantly aware of Allura and Pidge stepping forward, embracing Keith from his sides and then Sam coming and placing a hand atop Keith’s head and Veronica stepping in and placing hers on both Keith and Shiro’s shoulders with a whispered, “gracias,” tears gathered in her eyes.
Shiro didn’t like this at all.
But…
But it was right.
He pressed a kiss to the top of Keith’s head, heard the muffled huff of laughter mixed with a sob and the arms tightened about him.
“Thank you,” Shiro murmured. “You’re right. I promised. And I don’t break my promises. And… and so,” he swallowed thickly. “I promise we’re all gonna be okay.”
They had to be.
Wednesday, 1412 hours
Shiro glanced between the two monitors, stomach twisted.
Only pain stared back at him.
Hunk and Lance were on one screen. Hunk had given up at this point of stemming Lance’s nose and red coated the slender boy’s face and dripped down his neck and chest where water-soaked cloths were pressed all over. Hunk had Lance’s head propped atop his leg, combing bloodied fingers through Lance’s hair and his own head was tilted backwards displaying the gauze wedged up his own nose to catch the intermittent trickles.
Lance’s temperature: one hundred and four point two. Hunk’s temperature: one hundred point nine.
Rockbell said at this rate Lance would… would likely die sometime overnight and Hunk was progressing more rapidly, his body exhausted, growing weaker and with far far too much exposure to Lance.
They needed the cure and they needed it now.
But it wasn’t ready.
Shiro’s gaze cut to the other feed, a quarantined room inside the Garrison where Keith was elevated on a narrow hospital bed, hospital shirt already soaked through with sweat and cheeks bright splotches of red while blood trickled from his nose.
Colleen and Coran were in the room with him, Coran gently wiping Keith’s face as best he could while Colleen was in the process of taking yet another blood sample from his arm to put it through the purification process at her lab table and see if that would reacted any differently to the spore sample.
So far nothing.
His body hadn’t broken down the virus yet.
Neither remarked on the fact that it might not at all.
Pidge and Sam were outside the Garrison quarantine area aboard one of their larger ships with Keith, which was stationed just outside the barrier while Veronica and Allura had joined them on the reconfigured bridge that was dedicated to Lance and Hunk back at Garrison headquarters.
Shiro’s attention was dragged back to Lance and Hunk as Lance made a sound somewhere between a cry and a cough as his body heaved in Hunk’s grasp.
He was seizing.
Again.
Fourth time now, Rockbell notated quietly.
Hunk loosened his hold, tilting Lance onto his side, and his murmurs were too soft for the transmission to pick up but Shiro had gotten the mantra nearly down.
“Estás bien, you’re okay, please, Lance, come on, por favor, you can do it.”
God. He had told Klemin off for calling them boys but… but they were still so young.
And he felt so useless.
Lance stopped shuddering about a minute later and mumbled words passed through his lips instead.
“Mamá. Mamá, p-por favor.”
Hunk murmured something but Lance’s face screwed up and he called for his mom again.
“Lance,” Veronica’s voice was thick with tears and she pressed up against the screen. “Estoy a-aquí. Estoy aquí.”
“Mamá,” Lance whispered stilling.
“Estás bien. Estoy aquí.”
Lance shuddered out a sigh and went limp.
Veronica looked to Shiro. “I’m getting her.” She had tried earlier and the council had said no, the area off limits to civilians.
“Go,” Shiro whispered.
He would deal with any fallout from the council.
A mother…
A mother should be with her dying son.
Wednesday, 1742 hours
They had a cure.
Maybe.
Keith’s fever had broken, capping out at just over one hundred and two.
He’d beaten the virus although was laid out now, all weak limbs and pasty skin.
He’d still managed to flash a thumbs up and a smile at the screen before passing out.
Colleen was trying to convert his blood into an antigen now.
It still might not work. It was the bare bones of a cure, not properly tested or polished.
They didn’t have time.
Lance didn’t have time.
His fever was almost at one hundred and five.
He wouldn’t survive the next two hours, Rockbell said, at that trajectory. And even if they got the medicine in him…
It might be too late.
They were still going to try.
Wednesday, 1836 hours
“Careful,” Pidge cautioned as though it needed said. Her hands were shaking just as badly outside the containment unit as Hunk’s were inside as he pulled the syringes filled with a possible cure through.
Syringes with huge needles.
“Don’t you dare fucking faint, Hunk,” Pidge growled, slamming a hand against the window as Hunk felt himself waver. “Lance needs you, damnit! Don’t you dare!”
Hunk sucked in a breath and gave a nod, the motion sending his head aching.
He could feel himself going, his shakiness not entirely on the sight of the needles.
Slowly he made his way back to Lance, dropping with a thump next to him.
He moaned at that as it sent everything aching and barely managed to hold onto the syringes.
“Garrett,” Rockbell called from the screen. “You need to inject it into his upper arm. Hold down the depressor until it empties completely, understood?”
Hunk looked again at the needle.
So big.
He looked back to the screen. Shiro was there. Veronica. Lance’s mom and dad. Allura. Sam Holt. Iverson.
Pidge was outside the window. He knew Coran and Keith were down below, Keith having purposefully infected himself to give them a chance.
He looked down to Lance, his chest painted with blood and barely rising.
They were all counting on him.
He had to do this.
He clumsily lifted up one of the syringes, hand shaking.
He could do this.
For Lance.
He pressed the tip of the needle against Lance’s bicep, heard Rockbell coach him to bring it down a little bit.
“Now,” the doctor said.
Hunk pushed down.
The amber colored fluid drained into Lance.
There was no change.
Hunk knew there wouldn’t be, not like that, but…
“Pull it out now, nice and easy.”
Hunk’s stomach heaved as the needle reemerged.
“Good job. Now you,” Rockbell said. “Same place.”
“I…” Hunk swallowed. He tasted blood mixed with acid bile.
“You can do it, Hunk,” Shiro encouraged, although even he couldn’t hide the tremble of fear. “Come on, buddy. You’ve got this.”
Hunk bit back the moan of fear, pushed through the graying edges on his vision, and lifted the other syringe to his own arm.
And he pushed the depressor.
There was a sharp pain, more severe than the blood draw, and Hunk let out a breathless shout.
The now empty syringe quivered on his arm.
Hunk looked at it.
Blinked.
And fainted.
Wednesday, 1845 hours
“Come on come on come on,” Shiro muttered, staring at the screen. “Wake up, Hunk, come on.”
The larger boy was fully out of it despite the multiple airhorn blasts.
The vaccine would take time to work (if it did at all), but…
But in the meantime they were both still bleeding and Lance, lying down, was starting to choke on it.
He was going to suffocate right in front of them.
“I’m going in,” Pidge said, voice crackling across the feed.
“Pidge—”
“I’m not asking for permission,” she growled. “Fuck all of this, Shiro. I’m in the suit, I’m protected and I don’t give a fuck about protocol. You really think they’d have been walking out of their on their own anyway? Look at Keith!”
She had a point, Shiro admitted. But...
“Be careful, Katie,” Sam said, giving Shiro’s shoulder a squeeze. “You’ve got this, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, Dad. Going in.”
“Hurry,” Rockbell said.
A minute later Pidge keyed in that she had opened the exterior door and a moment after that the airlock.
She was inside.
“Breaching cockpit door now,” was the only warning they got on screen as a molten outline appeared on it and then she was visible. She ran to Lance’s side, grabbed him without ceremony and hauled him to a sit.
“This is for scaring me, you jerk,” she growled, slamming a hand on his back. Shiro was not the only one who winced at the harsh sounding hit.
But the gasping noises came to a halt and Lance shuddered out a breath instead in her arms. Pidge gently propped him against the chair and went to Hunk, removing the syringe from his arm and hefting him with the aid of her jetpack, still completely unconscious, to a sit next to Lance.
“Temperatures?” Rockbell asked.
Pidge picked up the scanner and pressed it to the side of Lance’s head. “One hundred four point eight.” The same as before. Hunk’s was one hundred and one point two, also the same as the last check.
“Hold steady,” Sam murmured.
Wednesday, 1926 hours
Hunk woke up to a fierce pounding behind his eyes and a beyond aching throat.
But it was the sight of a green and white helmet kneeling next to him that jolted him into wakefulness.
“Pidge!” he croaked. “Wh-what are you—?”
“It worked,” Pidge whispered, eyes bright behind her visor. “Hunk, it worked.”
“Wh-what?”
He turned his head further to where Lance was propped up against the pilot’s chair with him.
He still looked…
“His temperature’s dropping. He’s down almost half a degree. It… It w-worked.”
And then Hunk found his arms full of Pidge as she flung herself at him, sweat and blood-soaked shirt and all.
He hugged her back with all he had.
They…
They were going to be okay.
Thursday, 0126 hours
They were forced to wait until Lance’s fever broke before they could exit, the surest sign they had that the virus had run its course.
The fact Lance’s nose had stopped bleeding too was also promising.
Pidge had helped to clean Lance up as much as possible, wiping away blood and sweat while Hunk did the same to himself. He knew in the long run it didn’t matter as they still had to go through a decontamination process — a large scale globe like the one they had passed supplies through stationed just outside the alien ship — but it made Hunk feel better.
That, and the cool water was still aiding in bringing Lance’s fever down and keeping him hydrated was good too. Hunk had drained two more pouches himself.
He still couldn’t believe it was almost over.
He’d asked about the alien ship and had been informed that at a later time several of the Lions would be tethering the ship, ensconced still in a particle barrier, and set for a direct course for the sun. Colleen had confirmed in the interim that despite being able to survive any Earth temperatures the virus would burn out there. The only thing remaining were their samples and vaccine, to be locked in Garrison storage, just… just in case the Galra tried again.
When the time to leave finally came Pidge exited first, her suit getting a thorough decontamination, and she promised she would meet him at the hospital immediately after he and Lance went through.
Hunk had known it was coming and he’d had to strip both Lance and himself in the clear globe, but honestly, at this point he’d run naked through the Garrison halls if it could help. He just really hoped Allura and Pidge (and Veronica and Colleen and really, well, anyone that wasn’t part of the decontamination team) weren’t watching.
After a far too thorough cleaning process Hunk thought, in which he had to gently rotate a still unconscious Lance to all of the probes on wobbly legs of his own, he been ordered out of the globe into another affixed chamber carrying Lance.
Shiro was waiting.
Hunk made it not even two steps before his legs gave out but Shiro’s metal arm was already flying at him and hooked almost painfully around his bare waist and kept him up until Shiro closed the gap and pulled Hunk with Lance squished between them into a hug.
“I’m so proud of you,” Shiro whispered, breath warm on Hunk’s ear. “You… You did great, buddy. You did it.”
“Shiro,” Hunk sobbed.
It was over.
It was actually over.
“Come on, let’s get you some clothes,” Shiro murmured. “And then… then there are a bunch of people who want smother you with hugs.”
Hunk let out a teary laugh.
“I’d really like that.”
“I know, buddy. I know.”
Thursday, 1030 hours
Lance came to with someone rubbing their thumb over his hand.
It felt nice.
He felt nice.
Why was that such an odd thought?
He shifted and the hand froze in its ministrations.
“Lance?” the hand whispered instead.
It sounded like Allura.
Lance forced his eyelids — so heavy but not as heavy as before but what was before? — and blinked at the bright white that stared back.
Hospital walls and Allura’s hair.
What?
“Lance!” came another gasp and he turned his head on the pillow, taking in Pidge.
Beyond her was another hospital bed that Hunk was sitting propped up in, Veronica on the foot, and past that was another bed that contained Keith, Shiro in a chair next to him and Coran fiddling with what looked like an IV drip with a look of severe concentration on his face.
But at Pidge’s cry every head was turning in his direction and watery smiles and more gasps.
Lance remembered now. Not all of it, memories fuzzy on the edges, but enough.
The ship…
The dead aliens…
Hunk...
He’d almost…
“Don’t crowd him now,” sounded a voice Lance vaguely recognized and he turned.
Dr. Rockbell was entering the room along with Colleen and Sam and Iverson (and yes, Lance thought, he was a part of this now too) and…
His parents.
“Mamá,” he whispered, tears blurring his eyes. “Papá.”
“Mijo,” Mamá murmured, crossing the room in a few strides and Allura shifted down just in time as her hands came to wrap around his shoulders, pulling him to her. “Mijo, mijo mijo.”
Lance found his arms were trembling, weak, but he still managed to return the embrace, pressing his face into her shoulder to hide hot tears and felt Papá’s hand descend on his shoulder and squeeze it tightly.
He’d thought…
He didn’t think he’d ever see them again.
“Mi estúpido y valiente hijo,” Mamá whispered, drawing a wet sob. “Estoy tan orgulloso de ti.”
Lance lifted his head a moment later, tear-lined eyes scanning all of the faces that had clustered about his bed; Keith leaning on Shiro and Hunk being helped over by Coran. Pidge got up and patted her vacated spot for Hunk to sit and he did so, the bed dipping.
His mamá let him go and Lance threw himself sideways, nearly tipping Hunk off the bed.
He knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t be here without him.
“Gracias,” he whispered into the broad shoulder. “Gracias, hermano. Te quiero.”
“Te quiero,” Hunk murmured back. “God, Lance. You’re… you’re really…”
“You saved me,” Lance said. He looked up at the assembled room. “You, you all did.”
“And you saved all of us,” Shiro said softly, hand coming to rest atop Lance’s head. “You and Hunk. Thank you.”
Lance ducked his head, cheeks heating at Shiro’s praise.
“But God help you if you ever do something like that again,” Shiro continued.
“Seconded,” Allura raised a hand.
“Thirded,” Keith and Pidge said in tandem.
“Fourthed,” Veronica said.
“Infinitied,” Coran closed it out before it could grow any further.
Lance let out a choked laugh and Hunk snorted wetly.
“It’s… it’s not like we knew,” Lance defended lightly.
“I know, buddy,” Shiro’s hand stroked through his hair. “We all know. Just…”
They just wanted them to be safe.
Lance understood that. It’s why he’d done what he’d done to protect them. But he couldn’t even begin to imagine how horrible it must have been to watch him, watch Hunk, slowly die and be able to do nothing.
So he understood. He agreed.
But it wasn’t quite a promise they could make, not truly.
And they knew that too.
But…
But no matter what, Lance knew that if he had his family — blood and space and found and all matter in between — with him…
Then there was nothing that they could not overcome.